Monday, 30 August 2010

this will be an ongoing post until i've gone through the whole movie, but i am going to start listing my favorite points and quotes from this wonderful movie (Bill Maher == BM):

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00:11:00
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BM: So, Dr. Collins, you are a brilliant, brilliant scientist, the head of the Human Genome Project. Now here's what's so puzzling is that you are the one scientist--

[subtext: 93% of scientists in the american national academy of sciences are atheist or agnostic]

the one famous scientist anyway--who's also religious. Explain that to me.

Dr. Francis Collins (DFC): I would argue that if you look at the evidence, the historical evidence of Christ's existence is overwhelming.

BM: What evidence? I mean, I've never even heard anyone propose that there's evidence.

DFC: When I read the New Testament, it reads to me as the record of eyewitnesses who put down what they saw.

BM: You know they weren't eyewitnesses.

DFC: They were close to that.

BM: No.

DFC: Within a couple of decades of eyewitnesses.

BM: Okay. Would that stand up in a laboratory as absolute foolproof evidence that something happened?

DFC: You are setting up a standard for proof that I think would really be an almost impossible standard to meet.

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00:12:58
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BM: I'm surprised that things that are very important to the story, like the virgin birth, isn't in all four of them.

DFC: Wouldn't you really expect that kind of discordance when you're thinking about the way in which these documents came into being?

BM: But you'd think if you were one of Christ's biographers, that would be sort of an important thing not to leave out. "Oh, God, he was also born of a virgin."

BM: They don't notice the virgin birth. You know, I think that is something if you were any sort of reporter you'd put into the story. What editor looks at the facts and goes, "Yeah, but take out the thing about the virgin birth. That's not interesting."

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00:15:35
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BM: Reverend. Is that what I call you?

Jeremiah Cummings (JC): No, just call me... doctor.

BM: Doctor?

[subtext: Jeremiah Cummings is not a doctor.]

JC: Yeah.

[subtext: he does not have a degree...of any kind.]

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00:16:06
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JC: teddy pendergrass, who led the song, he was ordained a minister when he was 10 years old.

BM: what do you think it says about religion and how serious it is, when you can be a minister when you're 10?

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00:20:22
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BM:
Sodom and Gomorrah.

Apparently, it was a pretty wicked place.

How wicked?

Well let's just say that what happened in Gomorrah, stayed in Gomorrah.

That is until God got wind of it, so he sent two angels to investigate.

Now the angels went to the house of the one godly man in town-- Lot.

And the townspeople tried to rape them.

Now Lot, not wanting his town to get the reputation as the kind of place that would rape angels, offered up to the mob his own daughters to rape.

And he was the good guy in town.

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00:22:48
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Pastor John Westcott (Exchange Ministries) (JW): But I will be honest with you. The reality's a lot of people come here and go right back into whatever they came from.

BM: Because they're gay!

JW: I believe that it's sin.

BM: Excuse me, but don't you have it, no pun intended, ass-backwards?

JW: Meaning?

BM: Meaning homosexuality is something that occurs in nature.

...

JW: Nobody's born gay. There's no scientific or--

BM: Really? Have you ever met Little Richard?

...

JW: There's no scientific data that proves that anyone is--there's no gay gene.

***WHAT BILL MAHER SHOULD HAVE SAID HERE: there's no heterosexual gene either =)***

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BM: All of the proscriptions against homosexuality come from the Old Testament. Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. And if it's so important, why didn't he ever bring it up?

JW: We could pick lots of little things that he didn't specifically talk about.

BM: But this is a big thing.

...

BM: But what is your explanation for the millions and millions of people around the world who are leading homosexual lives...

JW: Well, it's not millions.

BM: ...have no interest in anyone of the opposite sex? Are they all faking just to piss off Jesus?

JW: They didn't choose this. They didn't desire it.

BM: Right, they were born gay.

JW: No, they weren't born that way. It's because of the insecurity within theirselves.

BM: It takes a lot of security to walk out of the house with assless chaps.

JW: They're not happy, most of them.

BM: They're called gay. They took the word. Some of them look positively thrilled.

JW: No, they are people who are really not complete in who they are as men or women.

BM: That's a pretty big judgment for a Christian.

JW: It's not a judgment.

BM: That's not a judgment? That you are sitting here telling these people who you don't even know that they're incomplete because they're not like you?

JW: I mean, it's not the people you suspect that are gay, that are gay.

BM: People like the Reverend Ted Haggard... "Moral purity is better than immorality." ...who kept meeting homosexual prostitutes in a hotel room and having gay sex with speed.

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00:29:06
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Steve Burg, Ex Jew for Jesus (SB): God is not that busy where He can't spend time listening to you when you really want to talk to Him, anytime.

BM: If Santa Claus can hit every house in the world in one night--

SB: I don't believe in Santa Claus.

BM: Of course not, that's ridiculous. That's one man flying all around the world and dropping presents down a chimney. That's ridiculous. One man hearing everybody murmur to him at the same time, that I get.

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00:29:55
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BM: You're 100% sure that after you die, you'll go to a better place.

SB: I know I'll be with God. l'll be with Jesus.

BM: And that's a better place.

SB: Even if it was in a garbage can, which I know it won't be, but even if it was, just the fact that i'm with Jesus, to me, is good.

BM: it's a better place.

SB: it's a better place.

BM: Then why don't you kill yourself?

SB: Because God still has a mission for me here.

BM: Oh, I see.

SB: i'm thinking of Jonah. God sent Jonah on a mission.

BM: When did the part of the story come when Jonah lived in the whale?

SB: It was a great fish.

BM: It's one of my favorite nonsense stories, Jonah living inside of the whale. And their answer unfailingly is ''The Bible doesn't say whale. It says big fish.'' Oh, yeah, big fish, that makes--i'm sorry I was obsessing on that it was a whale. it's a big fish. Of course you could live for three days in a big fish.

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00:32:33
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BM: How did this country get to be a Christian nation? I've read a lot of quotes from all the Founding Fathers. There are a lot of quotes that explicitly say we're not a Christian nation:
"lighthouses are more useful than churches." -- benjamin franklin
"this would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it!" -- john adams
"christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man." -- thomas jefferson

BM: Didn't he write his own Bible which divorced the New Testament from what he considered the unnecessary magic, bells and whistles?

RS: He took the Gospels, took out all of Jesus's miracles and took out all of Jesus's statements that claimed divinity, and put out a new book called ''The Faith and Moral Teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.'' We tend to lionize these guys and think of them all as the 12 Apostles plus the Founding Fathers, like they're in the same club or something. When in fact, these men understood very well that there was a difference between being Christian and being American.

BM: Right.

RS: In Jefferson's age, fewer people went to church less often.

Guy in BM's van (GBMV): Do you think that there are a lot of people who feel the way you do, but are afraid to speak out?

BM: Absolutely. Are you kidding? Yes, I think it is the great untapped minority in this country. In the last survey, I think it was 16% of Americans who now say they are absolutely unaffiliated with any religion, don't want to be in a religion, just don't go near me with religion. 16% of the population is a huge minority. It's bigger than Jews, blacks, homosexuals, NRA members, lots of people you could name who have lobbies that get everything they want or are at least are in the debate.

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00:34:27
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BM: So you've described yourself as an Evangelical Christian. You did a campaign ad where you said the most important lessons in life are in this book right here, meaning the Bible. Everyone in politics likes to brag that they're a person of faith. Why is faith good?

Mark Pryor, US Senator, Democrat (MP): Faith has a way of softening people. For example, if you look at the teachings of Jesus, he's very forgiving.

BM: He also said, "If a man doesn't abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned."

MP: Right. So? i do think, 'cause i'm a Christian, that Jesus is the way to be reconciled. And I do believe the actual literacy of that story. We'll let God sort out all the details of that on Judgment Day.

BM: What about the 10 Commandments? So many politicians talk about the 10 Commandments. Are they really the 10 most important moral--

MP: Are these the 10 suggestions? The 10 recommendations?

BM: But it's not really a wise list of 10. The first four are all about just worshipping God and basically that he's a jealous God, and he doesn't want you to have any other gods. The only two that are really laws are don't steal and don't kill. Why is this the wisest group of 10? lt doesn't include child abuse. lt doesn't include don't torture. lt doesn't include a lot of things-- rape--that I think if we were making a list today, we would probably include.

MP: Society is so different today and our culture is so radically different today.

BM: That's what i'm asking. We're in a different culture. Can you think of anything else that we still cleave to from the Bronze Age?